Top News

Amazon is considering a deeper multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic to tighten their AI partnership and fend off competition from Microsoft and OpenAI, as the two companies expand joint efforts around model training, data centers, and enterprise sales. The Financial Times has more here. 

Elon Musk today promised Tesla drivers his sometimes unpredictable AI chatbot Grok "very soon," adding, "Next week at the latest," so expect a conversational companion with personality quirks on your next road trip, Tesla owners.

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Grok 4 Seems to Consult Elon Musk to Answer Controversial Questions

By Maxwell Zeff

During xAI’s launch of Grok 4 on Wednesday night, Elon Musk said — while livestreaming the event on his social media platform, X — that his AI company’s ultimate goal was to develop a “maximally truth-seeking AI.” But where exactly does Grok 4 seek out the truth when trying to answer controversial questions?

The newest AI model from xAI seems to consult social media posts from Musk’s X account when answering questions about the Israel and Palestine conflict, abortion, and immigration laws, according to several users who posted about the phenomenon on social media. Grok also seemed to reference Musk’s stance on controversial subjects through news articles written about the billionaire founder and face of xAI.

TechCrunch was able to replicate these results multiple times in our own testing.

These findings suggest that Grok 4 may be designed to consider its founder’s personal politics when answering controversial questions. Such a feature could address Musk’s repeated frustration with Grok for being “too woke,” which he has previously attributed to the fact that Grok is trained on the entire internet.

More here. 

Massive Fundings

Agora, a one-year-old New York startup that helps companies launch their own branded stablecoins, raised a $50 million round led by Paradigm. NFTgators has more here.

Airalo, a six-year-old Singapore startup that sells digital SIM cards that let travelers access mobile data without needing a physical SIM or local phone plan, raised a $220 million round at a $1+ billion valuation. The deal was led by CVC Capital Partners, with previous investors Peak XV and Antler Elevate also participating. Reuters has more here.

Also, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup that designs and builds small electric vehicles for city use, targeting ride-hailing drivers and urban delivery services, raised a $200 million round at a $1 billion valuation. Greenoaks Capital supplied the financing. Bloomberg has more here.

Harmonic AI, a two-year-old Palo Alto startup that’s building AI systems to solve advanced math problems with provable accuracy, raised a $100 million Series B round at an $875 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by Kleiner Perkins, with Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and Paradigm also participating. Bloomberg has more here. 

iCapital, a 12-year-old New York company whose platform helps financialadvisors and wealth managers give their clients access to private equity, private credit, and other alternative investments, raised an $820+ million round at a $7.5+ billion post-money valuation. The co-leads were T. Rowe Price and SurgoCap Partners, with additional participation from previous investors Temasek, UBS, and BNY. Reuters has more here.

Nuclidium, a nine-year-old startup based in Basel, Switzerland, that develops copper-based radiopharmaceuticals to help doctors diagnose and treat cancer patients using targeted imaging and therapies, raised a $99 million Series B round co-led by Kurma Growth Opportunities Fund, Angelini Ventures, Wellington Partners, and Neva SGR, with DeepTech & Climate Fonds, Bayern Kapital, Eurazeo, Vives Partners, NRW.BANK, and HighLight Capital also contributing. More here.

Renasant Bio, a three-year-old Berkeley startup that is developing a drug for people with a rare kidney disease called ADPKD, raised a $54.5 million seed round led by 5AM Ventures, with Atlas Venture, OrbiMed, and Qiming Venture Partners USA also pitching in. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Varda Space, a five-year-old startup based in El Segundo, CA, that manufactures pharmaceuticals in space and returns them to Earth, aiming to produce drugs that are difficult or impossible to make in normal gravity, raised a $187 million Series C round co-led by Natural Capital and Shrug Capital, with Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Lux Capital, Also Capital, and Peter Thiel also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $329 million. TechCrunch has more here. 

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

AirMDR, a three-year-old startup based in Menlo Park, CA, that operates a security service that monitors companies’ cloud environments for cyber threats and responds to incidents as they occur, raised a $10.5 million seed extension round led by Race Capital, with Foundation Capital and Storm Ventures also stepping up. SecurityWeek has more here.

Aqtual, an eight-year-old startup based in Hayward, CA, that enables drug developers to detect and measure changes in gene expression from blood samples to better understand how patients respond to treatments, raised a $31 million Series B round. Investors included Bold Capital and Bold Longevity Growth Fund as well as previous investors Genoa Ventures, Manta Ray Ventures, and Yu Galaxy. More here.

​​Datafy, a three-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps businesses automatically monitor and manage their cloud storage to reduce costs and improve performance, raised a $20 million seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and including Insight Partners. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Foundation EGI, a one-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA that uses domain-specific AI to streamline engineering and manufacturing workflows, raised a $23 million Series A round led by Translink Capital, with RRE Ventures, McRock Capital, Escape Investment Management, and Fifth Growth Fund, as well as previous investors E14 Fund, UNION Venture Capital, GRIDS Capital, and Henry Ford III also participating. SiliconANGLE has more here. 

LGND, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that helps companies analyze and query satellite and geospatial data using vector embeddings, raised a $9 million seed round led by Javelin Venture Partners, with AENU, Clocktower Ventures, Coalition Operators, MCJ, Overture, Ridgeline, and Space Capital also participating. TechCrunch has more here. 

Moment, a four-year-old New York startup whose platform lets institutional investors analyze bond markets, identify opportunities, and automate fixed-income trades, raised a $36 million Series B round led by Index Ventures, with Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Venrock, Neo, and Contrary Capital. The company has raised a total of $56 million. PYMNTS has more here.

Unblock, a four-year-old Buenos Aires startup that builds and operates data centers that convert wasted or underused energy from power grids into computing power for businesses, raised a $13.5 million round. The deal was led by Goldcrest Capital and Collaborative Fund, with Pampa Energia, Grupo Sielecki, FJ Labs, NYDIG, Luxor Technology, and Sunna Ventures also piling on. More here.

Vellum, a three-year-old New York startup that provides infrastructure that helps enterprises build, test, and deploy AI products, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Leaders Fund, with Socii Capital as well as previous investors Y Combinator, Rebel Fund, and Eastlink Capital also chipping in. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Abacus, a New York startup founded this year that automates the extraction of complex tax form data for accounting firms, raised a $6.6 million seed round led by Menlo Ventures, with Pear VC, Recall Capital, and Original Capital also engaging. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Blue Box Biomedical, a four-year-old Barcelona startup that makes a device that uses saliva samples and AI to screen for early signs of breast cancer, raised a $3.5 million round led by Unconventional Ventures, with Fund F, Grow Ventures, Hans(wo)man Group, and the Foss/Krups family also opting in. Femtech Insider has more here.

Chariot Claims, a two-year-old Brooklyn startup that helps people find out if they’re eligible for compensation from class action settlements, manages the paperwork and legal process, and handles payouts for individuals filing consumer claims, raised a $3.6 million round led by Indicator Ventures, with participation from Lightbank, Neon Ventures, Alumni Ventures, FJ Labs, Graph Ventures, Rosecliff Ventures, Chapter F, and ZVC. More here.

Oraion, a one-year-old Irish startup that provides infrastructure for developers to build AI agents that can act autonomously by interacting with data, tools, and software, raised a $3.5 million pre-seed round led by Studio VC, with Enterprise Ireland also anteing up. Silicon Republic has more here.

Ryft, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that provides a data infrastructure platform that helps enterprises manage, govern, and scale their data systems using Apache Iceberg, raised an $8 million seed round led by Index and including Bessemer Venture Partners. The SaaS News has more here.

Welli, a three-year-old Bogotá startup that offers a medical credit platform that helps patients in Latin America access financing for healthcare expenses, raised an $8 million Series A round led by Costanoa Ventures, with Animo VC and Crestone also chipping in. LatamList has more here.

YPlasma, a two-year-old New York and Madrid startup that makes cooling systems that use plasma to lower the temperature of computer chips in data centers, raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Faber, with SOSV also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

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New Funds

Propel Venture Partners, a nine-year-old San Francisco venture firm, has closed a $100 million fund to invest in early-stage fintech deals. More here. 

Going Public

UK tech startups are raising record private capital, but a risk-averse market, unfriendly policies, and regulatory inertia are pushing IPO-ready founders to list in the U.S. instead. CNBC has more here. 

People

A San Francisco judge ruled that Don Lemon’s breach-of-contract lawsuit against Elon Musk and X can proceed to trial, rejecting Musk’s efforts to move the case or dismiss claims tied to the abrupt cancellation of Lemon’s show following a combative interview. The Wrap has more here. 

A tech watchdog filed an IRS complaint alleging that OpenAI’s restructuring could hand CEO Sam Altman a windfall worth billions, citing conflicts of interest between the nonprofit’s board and its for-profit operations. The New York Post has more here. 

Essential Reads

America’s largest power grid operator, PJM, is under fire as soaring AI-driven data center demand and delayed power plant approvals push electricity bills up more than 20% this summer in parts of its 13-state territory. Reuters has more here. 

The Wall Street Journal digs into why xAI’s Grok went rogue, tracing the chatbot’s violent and antisemitic outbursts to recent changes in its prompt instructions that removed guardrails and encouraged politically incorrect speech. More here. 

Detours

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